2008 Skate America

Everett, WA

Competition Reports

Competition Schedule

Friday, Oct. 24, 2008

Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008

2:00 PM

Original Dance
Pairs Free Skate

7:00 PM

Ladies Short Program
Menís Free Skate

Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008

11:00 AM

Free Dance
Ladies Free Skate

5:00 PM

Exhibition of Champions

Overview

Sunday, 26 October

Skate America finished today with the Dance and Ladies finals. We
estimate about 5000 on hand for the afternoon session and similar attendance for
the Exhibition, which was held later in the evening. This years
competition set a record for tickets sold. The exact number is lost from
my memory but it was about 29,500, which would put my attendance estimates at
about 10% too low. The local event organizers and the Washington State
tourist board when above and beyond, delivering a well run and enjoyable event.

Saturday, 25 October

Skate America charges forward today with the completion of the Pairs and
Men's events, the Original Dance, and the start of the Ladies event.

Official attendance is not yet available from Friday. We estimate
perhaps 1000 for the Compulsory Dance Friday afternoon, and 4000 for the evening
session.

The judging panels here are using the new ISU formulation consisting on nine
judges, two of whom are randomly discarded, and the remaining seven calculated
with the single trimmed mean. When this new process was announced by the
ISU it was said by ISU officials that this was acceptable because the training
of judges has greatly improved since the initial implementation of IJS.

The scores here do not support that point of view, nor does a comparison of
marks from the 2005 through 2008 World Championships that were scored under IJS.
The spread of the judges marks are still 30% or more, with ranges of 2 or more
points seen in the Program Components scored by the judges. The reality
is, the judges are doing no better today in consistency of evaluation than they
were four years ago. The claim that the judges overall now have
significantly greater skill in using IJS than they did four years ago is one
made from whole cloth.

Attendance today exceeded Friday. There are still no official
attendance figures. We put the afternoon session for the OD and Pairs
final at starting at about 2000 with perhaps 3000 by the end of the pairs, and
the evening session at 5000.

Friday, 24 October

Today is the first day of competition for the 2008 Skate America, being held
in Everett, Washington, a small town about 40 miles north of Seattle, located on
Puget Sound. Though 17 months away, the jockeying for position going into
the 2010 Olympic games have begun. We have several retooled skaters in
their first outings after coaching or other strategic changes. We have
current champions aiming to stay on the podium and former champions looking to
reprise their former glory.

In the ladies event, a slimmed down Miko Ando has been working the quad hard
for this season. Kimmie Meissner is said to be starting a new mindset this
season, to not just execute her programs, but to perform them, and Mirai Nagasu
makes her debut in a major international competition.

The main attraction among the men is the continuation of the Weir-Lysacek
rivalry. Evan Lysacek will be showing his new programs which have been
hype to herald a new performance style for him after spending the summer in
Moscow with famed coach Tatiana Tarasova. Kevin van der Perrin and
Chengjiang Li were scheduled to compete here but withdrew beforehand due to
injuries. U.S. Junior National Champion Adam Rippon is making his debut in
a major international competition. He has been working this year to get a
triple Axel, so far with limited success.

In pairs, U.S. National Champions Keauna McLaughlin & Rockne Brubaker get
to go head to head with the current World Champions Aliona Savchenko & Robin
Szolkowy, from Germany.

After a disappointing fourth place finish at the 2008 World Championships,
Tanith Belbin & Benjamin Agosto made a radical change in coaching moving to
the Philadelphia area to work with Natalia Linichuk and Gennadi Karponosov.
Over the summer the couple took on an intensive back-to-basics training regimen.
This competition will give the first indication of the impact of these
changes. They will be going up against the French couple of Isabelle
Delobel & Olivier Schoenfelder, the reigning World Champions.